I never have anything to talk about. It’s the main reason I don’t post anything on this site. This is mainly due to the fact that I rarely do anything. I’m 110% introvert and with that comes a cloud of anxiety towards talking to people. I suck at making friends out in the real world, my idea of fun is going the Barnes and Nobles to look at books. Hardly anyone who goes to Barnes and Nobles wants to talk to anyone else. Because it’s a bookstore, the same rules that apply to libraries apply there…it just makes your bank account sad after words. WHAT BUY TWO GET ONE FREE!!! That makes spending forty bucks way more reasonable!

*Side Note: Why are “Teen Fiction” novels like 10-13 dollars a piece and “Adult Fiction” novels are closer to 20+…feels like some bullshit*

So because of this being my normal free-time activity it’s hard for me to forge relationships. I’m not a big bar hopper, unless I’m with a group of people AND GUESS WHAT! Have I finally got a story for you.

The main people I become friends with are my work friends, because they are forced to interact with me muhahaha. Somehow, in some magic voodoo way, I don’t weird them out. They are all pretty awesome, they are what makes my job fun at times. They are also…insane. This only pertains to some of them, and they probably know who they are. This post goes straight to Facebook so “Hello…everybody…” *cough*

I never really went out with most of them on a huge scale until last night, a group of us went to a couple of bars and eventually a drag show. It was all rather interesting, I drank way to much and did a couple of stupid things. But I can use the “I’m sorry I was just really drunk.” excuse right? Some of the night is slightly foggy to me, but that’s fine, I’ve only done that a couple of times.

You know I’m at the end of this post and I’m realizing that this isn’t even a good story, I’m getting back into it though. I’m actually going to be changing the name of the blog soon, hopefully you all will like the change. I also hope I get more motivation to write for you all, because it may not seem like it, but I enjoy talking to all of you that read and comment. Thank you.

When I was a kid, I had a friend named Paige. Her and I did everything together, at least everything that two kids in the first grade could do. This consisted of sharing crayons, playing together during recess, and attending each other’s birthday parties.

I can’t recall how much time we actually spent with each other in the grand scheme of things. I can’t remember her voice, or the way that she walked, but I can vaguely see her face as if I’m looking at it from a great distance. I have very few distinct memories with her, but perhaps that’s because there was never many of them.

As I look back I believe one of my first vivid memories was with her. Paige has invited me to her birthday party, and I was extremely excited. When I got there it was strange and awkward, I was the only boy present in a room full of girls. Even as a kid I suffered from being extremely awkward, so you can only imagine how I was in this situation. It hasn’t ceased yet even in adulthood.

However, as uncomfortable as it was, and even though I could hardly do anything at the party, I still had a good time. Even though I can remember this so well, there are moments where I contemplate if it was ever truly real. The foggy memories during that time surround this surreal clear one.

Paige moved away at the end of first grade, and I never really found out where she went. Or maybe I did and I simply forgot because as much as time can heal, it can also break apart things as well. As a child, love and strong emotions are such an unknown concept – like floating in the ocean with no idea what lurks beneath you. So I can’t say that Paige was the first girl I loved, but I can easily see now that I cared for her as much as six-year-old Wes could.

It fills my head with “What if?” thoughts though, ones that sometimes keep me up at night – Like what if she never moved away? What if I met her now rather than when I was a kid? Or what if I ran into her again hoping to god her memory of me was stronger than mine of her and she goes “Wesley? Oh my god Wesley, is that you?” Life isn’t a movie though, and situations like that are as improbable as winning the lottery.

I’ve now been going over all of my “What if?” moments, the ones I’ve gather through the years like a box of memorabilia. Obvious ones like – what if I asked that girl out in high school? Or what if I wasn’t so afraid of losing a friend by telling them how I felt? The normal ones, the “What if?” questions that everyone has.

The longer I sit on it though, the more obscure and strange they become. What if I found an injured baby fox and my neighbor’s dog became friends with it? Because then we’d have a real life The Fox and the Hound situation on our hands. Or what if I had a fairy god parent, but I told someone because I can’t keep a secret!

It’s these annoying thoughts that keep me awake when I should be sound asleep, and I wonder why it’s been happening more frequently now. Maybe my brain is trying to show me just how annoying “What if?” questions really are. That maybe I should stop over thinking everything I do and just take the leap and hope I don’t drown in an ocean of uncertainty.

Oh look at that I’m an hour late, well my god it still works except now the second S stands for Sunday. We can yell at me another time I suppose, Linda be merciful I already have three sisters I get yelled at a lot already. Continue reading →

Every time I see a small stick on the ground I believe that a wizard or witch has lost their wand and that I need to keep it safe, until one day they finally find me and I give it back to them. Continue reading →

When I was a kid there was a tree within my neighborhood that towered above all the rest. It sat behind a house that had families constantly coming and going, for the most part it was always empty so no one cared that we were in the yard. My friends and I would constantly climb it, we tried to get higher than the day before. We joked with each other about possibly climbing to the top, that dream seeming so far out of reach. We would make it to a certain height and chicken out, the height to an adult was probably daunting.

Our families were not aware we did such a thing, of course the knowledge that what we were doing wrong fueled the rebel inside each of us. One day though a friend of mine and I decide that today was the day, we were going to climb to the top. I can still remember the feelings I had that day. Using my hands to pull on the rough bark, the triumphant feelings after each successful climb. The wind wasn’t exactly rough, but at the height we had found ourselves it was formidable. Fear crept inside me about the possibility of falling but I was able to snuff the feeling with determination.

It wasn’t long before we made it past our highest point, my friend and I would always use a pocket knife to cut a part of the tree. It made it easier when you were trying to determine how high you had gotten the day before. I pulled myself up once again, this time filled me with some type of joy I hadn’t felt before. I had gotten higher than the rest of my friends and I could see the tops of the houses so easily. I didn’t dare look down completely, I’m sure I would have been sick if I had. I continued though until the branches became to thin and unstable to hold my weight. My friend wasn’t far behind and as we clung to the branches support we realized we had made it to the top. A little kids version of Everest and we had conquered it.

It wasn’t soon after that we realized a very important fact, we had been so happy and joyful while basking in the sounds of our other friends cheering from the ground that we forgot. We couldn’t get down. We had climb the tree many times before, but never to the extent that we had that day. We somehow didn’t trust out feet as much as we had our hands, we both knew we were stuck. We starting yelling, screaming frantically for our other friends to get help.

They got our parents, we figured that we might as well let go and fall because they were going to kill us anyways. My mother was livid, she walked to the base of the tree and started screaming towards us. “Wesley Pell Hollifield what in gods name are you doing, GET DOWN FROM THERE!” She yelled to me and to that I replied…

“Don’t you think I’m trying!!!”

It took about an hour for us to find our way to the ground, it would have taken less time, but every time our feet touched another branched successfully we stopped and thanked God. Even though the moment was frightening, I had never felt so free in my entire life. I looked over the entire neighborhood, it seemed as though I could see beyond the horizon.

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Some dreams are so vivid that later in life you recall them almost like memories, this is one of those times where I don’t know whether it happened or it was a dream. This was for Linda G Hill’s ‘Stream of Consciousness Saturday‘

When I was younger I had found myself being bullied for multiple things, it could range from weight, to my face, to the fact that I didn’t have any of those sweet Heelys. (Thanks mom and dad) Now I honestly wasn’t huge in middle school, I was a bit bulkier than most guys, but that was about it. I’m sure if you created a scale of my age and then the height I was at the time I would only be a little bit over normal. Middle school though, is a time where everyone is an asshole. When I say everyone I do mean EVERYONE…that includes you, me, and that nice guy Johnny who is kind to everyone. (What are you planning Johnny?)

It wasn’t until the cold weather today and my inability to take a proper shower due to poor time management skills that I was reminded of a special time. See I have dandruff, and throughout the years I have learned to keep it under control. Yet on days like today, and times like middle school, that I’m reminded of Ally Sheedy’s character from The Breakfast Club. You all know what scene I’m talking about.

So let me paint a picture, and forgive me in advance because well a dog could paint better than I. It’s about seventh grade so I’m thirteen at the time so the year would be 2008, and look at that I did math! I’m sitting in my homeroom class ready to start yet another wonderful day within the middle school life. I’m wearing a black jacket and word of advise to any kid reading this with bad dandruff…don’t wear black…it’s like our kryptonite.

This girl…lets call her B, now I like to think that the B stands for something other than her actual name, but that’s just angry middle school me talking. B is sitting behind me and I am dealing with my embarrassing dandruff at the moment. I’m wearing black as I said earlier (Why. Would. You. Wear. Black.) so she can see the flakes of dandruff as clearly as anything. Now all I hear come from her is “Ew what is that?” pointing at my coat, now at first I was like ‘Oh shit I have a bug on me’ but I quickly realized that was not the case.

Now I’m getting red because back then I got embarrassed rather easily, well hell, I still get embarrassed rather easily. I’m internally crumbling because at the moment I simply wanted to disappear, but reality doesn’t allow that type of stuff. Everyone is laughing pointing at me and I am on the point of tears, no one likes being laughed at. Right before I was about to though someone stood up, not to further my humiliation, but to come to my rescue. He simply said “It’s simply dead skin.” Not a good start…”You have it, I have it, they have it. Get over it.” At least they stuck the landing. I was appreciative at them helping me out, I became friends with them quickly after.

We all have problems, whether it be weight, social awkwardness, or simply dandruff, and there are times where we feel alone because of them. There are times where it seems like because of those things, we are exiled from other people. That isn’t the case, because despite the problems you have, despite what you think holds you back. Know that there are always people that will accept you, there is always someone out there who would love to be your friend.

I spent a good portion of my life believing that I was allergic to eggs, but it turns out I was simply allergic to a preservative in those liquid eggs you can buy in cartons. What. The. Hell.

After my first full week at my new job I have found myself egg-sausted, but I wanted to talk to you all. It’s been awhile peoples, it’s been a hot minute…or you know a cold minute since it’s winter. I honestly don’t know what to talk about that involves eggs anymore! I wanted to participate in Stream of Consciousness Saturday’s by Linda G Hill though. You can’t stop me, even if this post lacks in substance.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent too much of your life watching videos of vehicles colliding with things they have no business colliding with (e.g. walls, rivers, ditches, moving cars, parked cars, etc.) And if you’re anything like me, you probably cry yourself to sleep at night.

But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s get on with the relevant story:

My partner Moose – yes, that is the name his mother didn’t give him – and I had spent the better part of the afternoon hanging out on the banks of the Columbia River east of Portlandia. It was summertime, so half of the Portland metro area was gathered along the Columbia to bask in the coruscating glory of the sun while dipping their toes in the river. This is not where our story takes place.

At the end of our Nicholas Sparks-worthy afternoon, we and the rest of the weekend warriors were reluctantly returning to the rest of our dreary lives. Like cattle, we filed onto the freeway. This is where our story takes place.

Two motorcyclists rushed from behind, whipping into the adjacent lane before zooming past us and settling themselves in front of us. We didn’t think much of it – perhaps smirked a little as they had been rushing to get nowhere fast. Their “stunt” was moot as the traffic wasn’t moving much anywhere in front of us.

Here’s where it gets fun, folks.

A third motorcyclist came zooming in much like his comrades. However, this third amigo didn’t get the memo about the stopped traffic ahead.

He rushed up, whipped to the right, zoomed to the left – and panicked at the stopped traffic by slamming the rear brakes. If you’re familiar with motorcycle riding at all, you already know the dangers of this maneuver, especially when done at high speeds and at an angle. His rear tire locked and rapidly swung right, left, right – I jolted up in my seat, crying “Whoa whoa, WHOA” – and BOOM, bike and biker are down. The ex-rider comes rolling past us as the bike slides beneath a semi-truck. The gas tank has been punctured and leaves a smear of gasoline on the road. The skidding of metal on blacktop creates just enough spark to ignite the leaking bike, which erupted into a 2 second long flourish of flame. The semi-truck nearly runs over the bike, but maneuvers out of the way in time.

To my right, the biker has jumped up and is holding an openly bleeding arm. He makes for the shoulder and starts yelling “Call and ambulance! Call an ambulance!” The semi-truck has pulled over 50 feet ahead and traffic is now a clusterf*ck around us. Moose is taking it hard – as a past motorcycle rider with a penchant for the cheap thrill, he says he knew what the bikers were doing and should have given them more room. I attempted to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, that the guy was being a dumb biker.

The police response time was fast – certainly faster than 3 minutes because we weren’t sitting there very long. An officer walked up to our car and asked if we were okay. Moose said how he felt bad. The officer replied with a half grin and said they’d been getting calls about that guy all afternoon. He’d been speeding up and down the freeway and had even catcalled a couple of women. “He’s an asshole and that’s what you get for riding like an asshole” – his words, not mine!

This made Moose feel a little better. I looked over my shoulder at the injured asshole. Apparently, there had been a doctor in the traffic behind us, so she was tending to him while the ambulance was on its way. The downed motorcycle had been moved to the other side of the road and a single file line was slowly moving through this little mess.

My heart was still at a slightly quickened pace, but all I could do was laugh. It could have been way, way worse. No one, aside from the one idiot, was hurt. Selfishly, I found it exciting – especially since there were no other casualties. Writing this now, I can still visualize that brilliant flash of fire in the middle of the road, something I’d only ever seen on a 2-dimensional screen until then. Wow. Just wow. To think how bad it could have been! And so I laughed the nervous laugh of great relief. Moose and I were still alive. We were together and we were still alive.

Stay safe, friends,Michelle

Thanks for reading!Michelle and her companion Moose are the irreverent bloggers over at The Lonely Tribalist, where they wax nonsense about politics, feminism, Conan O’Brien, and life in all its glory. Thank you, Wes, for allowing us this generous space to tell our tale!

I would like to thank Moose and Michelle for taking the time to guest post on my page, you guys are awesome!